Core i7-11700K Review: Disappointing gaming performance

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

AnandTech already have a review of the i7-11700K up, using a retail model not bound by NDA.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16535/intel-core-i7-11700k-review-blasting-off-with-rocket-lake

Despite the claimed 19% IPC uplift, gaming performance on Rocket Lake is deeply disappointing, losing to Comet Lake and even to Coffee Lake in some cases.

It also consumes up to double the power of the 5800X, while not performing as well.

The reason for these regressions seems to be the increased L3 cache latency, probably due to the difficulties of backporting Sunny Cove to the 14nm process, and with just 16MB of cache (compared to Vermeer's 32MB), the situation is not helped at all. Unless BIOS revisions improve performance (and it is unlikely at this point), Rocket Lake is only good for AVX-512 performance, and not for gaming.

For anyone looking to build a gaming PC, it's probably best to stick with what we have now. Some CPUs like the i7-9700F, i5-10400F and i9-10850K are selling at very good prices right now, and 5600X/5800X stock is improving rapidly. It is probably best not to expect that AMD will release successors to the 3600 and 3700X since Rocket Lake will probably fail to be competitive. This is Intel's Bulldozer moment.

[Republic3D 1,229]

Wow that's actually quite bad. Why would it be slower than last gen? Could an updated BIOS help in this case?

[simon747 185]

Think it is a cache latency issue...

[KL Oo 695]

I find this interesting as I’m in the process of deciding on a new build. I’m coming from an 8086k at 5.1 and a 6700k before that...I’ve always been intel. But it does seem that AMD is a fair compeditor.

 

I understand traditionally a lot of us went with intel for the higher single core clock speeds with P3D being more single that multi threaded....but does that still hold true? And what of MSFS - would the current top end AMD actually be a better offering?
 

[martin-w 3,234]

Now let's see the 11900k. That was were the 19% improvement was, I recall. 

Don't recall it was across the entire series. 

[simon747 185]

I believe an OC to 5.0 on any intel i7 (9000 series and above) or i9 would be almost as good as the new zen 3 AMD's that are non ok'd.  Flight sim 2020 does still need high single core performance but is diminishing returns from higher than 6-8 cores until dx 12 implementation hopefully.  Hyper threading etc is not fully used.  Se attached.

Edited March 7, 2021 by simon747

[micstatic 4,296]

The other problem with this chip is the heat and power consumption.  Off the charts. 

[simon747 185]

Yes, the latency issue  is more pronounced in gaming benchmarks.  I read that because the rocket lake architecture was designed for 10nm and intel went 14nm with the 11 series, the PCB tracers are longer and increasing L3 and core to core latency.  The next CPU cycle if on 10nm may have better gaming results.

Edited March 7, 2021 by simon747

[westman 257]

8 hours ago, martin-w said:

Now let's see the 11900k. That was were the 19% improvement was, I recall. 

Don't recall it was across the entire series. 

you never see the 19% and the 10900k oc 100-200mhz higher all core

Edited March 7, 2021 by westman

[MatthewS 761]

Intel jumped the shark. 🦈

[Luke 782]

7 hours ago, simon747 said:

The next CPU cycle if on 10nm may have better gaming results.

With Intel, that's a very big if. In a few years I'd love to hear the full post-mortem on why they were stuck at 14nm for so long.

Cheers!

[simon747 185]

8 hours ago, Luke said:

With Intel, that's a very big if. In a few years I'd love to hear the full post-mortem on why they were stuck at 14nm for so long.

Cheers!

Yes, a bit strange we have been stuck on the same relative single core performance, in gaming at least, and max clock speed for quite a bit now.  Thought the 11 series would change that. 😯

Edited March 8, 2021 by simon747

[martin-w 3,234]

On 3/6/2021 at 7:15 PM, Republic3D said:

Wow that's actually quite bad. Why would it be slower than last gen? Could an updated BIOS help in this case?

 

I think we have to be careful. So far there are a limited number in the wild. When we have a larger sample to look at we will get a better picture. 

I'm reserving judgement at this point. Performance improvements are common with BIOS updates, so... maybe, to a degree. 

[martin-w 3,234]

On 3/7/2021 at 12:29 PM, micstatic said:

The other problem with this chip is the heat and power consumption.  Off the charts. 

 

The 11 series is pretty much pre-overclocked out of the box it seems to me, so not surprising. Intel panicking and attempting to compete with AMD. 

[martin-w 3,234]

13 hours ago, Luke said:

With Intel, that's a very big if. In a few years I'd love to hear the full post-mortem on why they were stuck at 14nm for so long.

Cheers!

 

Its claimed that because Intel own and operate their own fabs, it generates challenges that are unique to them. 

https://www.pcgamer.com/what-went-wrong-intel/